WAR damage is lacking

[LilLemay]

It was just a matter of time that someone that plays warrior comes and complains about the damage. Normally we have just complains by PLD/DRK's saying that WAR needs to be nerfed. It made me laugh please continue.

WAR doesn't need to be nerfed, PLD/DRK need to be buffed

[Ultimatecalibur]

WAR doesn't need to be nerfed, PLD/DRK need to be buffed

All 3 need to be rebalanced relative to each other and 8 member raid compositions. Just buffing DRK and PLD will not fix the current imbalances.

All 3 tanks should have roughly similar (within +/-5% of the mean) damage output and levels of utility while MTing and OTing.

[Ilan]

All 3 need to be rebalanced relative to each other and 8 member raid compositions. Just buffing DRK and PLD will not fix the current imbalances.

All 3 tanks should have roughly similar (within +/-5% of the mean) damage output and levels of utility while MTing and OTing.

For what? Content gets easier and easier so that even the tank with the lowest dps aka PLD is totaly fine in there.

[Sarcatica]

For what? Content gets easier and easier so that even the tank with the lowest dps aka PLD is totaly fine in there.

Pretty much. People complain about anything nowadays. This balance issue only conflicts the top raiding groups who are doing day 1 progression and speedruns, which SE probably won't bother doing anything because the bigger picture is that no one is as skilled as those top raiders are, the gap is too huge to even account for. Sadly, again, SE is a company that generates revenue and balancing jobs for the highest level isn't in the agenda, opposite of the esports in that sense.

[aleph_null]

Pretty much. People complain about anything nowadays. This balance issue only conflicts the top raiding groups who are doing day 1 progression and speedruns, which SE probably won't bother doing anything because the bigger picture is that no one is as skilled as those top raiders are, the gap is too huge to even account for. Sadly, again, SE is a company that generates revenue and balancing jobs for the highest level isn't in the agenda, opposite of the esports in that sense.

Yeah balancing to allow every job to viably clear the raid tier is good enough I think. The top progression raiders or speedrun groups will switch to whatever job/composition that results in the fastest kill time anyway, so unless the jobs are very homogenized there will be a "best" composition, even if only by a little margin. I think if 4.0 adds an "OT" oriented tank that competes with war for the "OT" spot it'll be good enough, albeit not ideal since some compositions like pld/drk will still be bad. A bit unrelated but for healers all compositions seem to work fine after the recent patches, at least neither whm/ast nor sch/whm seems to be as bad as pld/drk.

Isn't that a little bland ? Considering tank gameplay is not that different between jobs, if they have the roughly the same numbers, they'll only be more copies of each other.
For me, any party setup should offer the same overall DPS, to give freedom on the job choices (Excluded common bad choices like stacking the same jobs). Since WAR is supposed to be the top "personal tank-DPS", PLD and DRK should balance that with party utility.

I think instead of personal dps output it should be total raid dps contribution that should be balanced (like war's slashing debuff allowing nin to use higher potency combo). Not just for tanks but that should be how all dps jobs are balanced as well imo.

[Reynhart]

All 3 tanks should have roughly similar (within +/-5% of the mean) damage output and levels of utility while MTing and OTing.

Isn't that a little bland ? Considering tank gameplay is not that different between jobs, if they have roughly the same numbers, they'll only be more copies of each other.
For me, any party setup should offer the same overall DPS, to give freedom on the job choices (Excluding obvious bad choices like stacking the same jobs). Since WAR is supposed to be the top "personal tank-DPS", PLD and DRK should balance that with party utility.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Isn't that a little bland ? Considering tank gameplay is not that different between jobs, if they have roughly the same numbers, they'll only be more copies of each other.

Not really. Method is more important for determining individuality than numbers. PLDs having a "simple" stable rotation, WARs having "primal" stack generation and use that allow for big hits, and DRK buffing various abilities and attacks with Dark Arts are the primary things that distinguish the 3 tanks from each other.

Tempered Will vs Holmgang vs Plunge is a very good example of same result but different methods. All 3 actions are anti-knockback but Tempered Will prevents the forced movement, Holmgang anchors position and Plunge counters the forced movement with an instant move of its own. Hallowed Ground/Holmgang/Living Dead is another example.

Lets says SE wanted to give all 3 tanks a full party protection skill like the Paladin's Divine Veil. They could give WAR a version of PvP's Thrill of War (Increases maximum HP of self and nearby party members by 10%/20% and restores HP by 10%/20%) and DRK an ability (lets call it Soul Anchor) that prevents nearby party members from dropping below 1 HP as long as the Dark Knight is alive and they have the buff. All three do basically the same job but each does it differently.

For me, any party setup should offer the same overall DPS, to give freedom on the job choices (Excluding obvious bad choices like stacking the same jobs). Since WAR is supposed to be the top "personal tank-DPS", PLD and DRK should balance that with party utility.

WAR being the dps tank, PLD being the physical tank and DRK being the magic tank are kinda where the whole imbalance problem comes from. Because War dps > Pld/Drk dps, War + Pld/Drk ends up inherently better than Pld + Drk when dps matters. Pld and Drk have similar troubles based on whether a fight is more Physical and Magical damage heavy. This has been a regularly reoccurring problem throughout 3.X.

[Reynhart]

PLDs having a "simple" stable rotation, WARs having "primal" stack generation and use that allow for big hits, and DRK buffing various abilities and attacks with Dark Arts are the primary things that distinguish the 3 tanks from each other.

First problem with that. Nothing you actually describes as any real impact on how you tank. All of these refers to how do they do damage.

Hallowed Ground/Holmgang/Living Dead is another example.

But, most of the time, they're still used in the same way and at the same time. And they don't really matter when you chose which tank you'll want in your party. The "tanking" gameplay could be much more unique between the three tanks.

Lets says SE wanted to give all 3 tanks a full party protection skill like the Paladin's Divine Veil.

Then you'll have people beginning to crunch numbers to determine which "party protection" skill is the best, depending on potency and CD...and then still choosing WAR
As a reminder, they already have a "party protection" skill. For WAR, it's called Storm's Path, and for DRK, it's called Delirium, since party wide AoE are frequently magical.

WAR being the dps tank, PLD being the physical tank and DRK being the magic tank are kinda where the whole imbalance problem comes from.

Not really. The imbalance comes from WAR's main contribution being offensive while the other two are defensive. Let's get real, no one cares what any tank bring on a pure defensive spot, since even the lowest defensive tank needs to be able to main tank anything. So, you have to design three ways of contributing offensively to the party.

[Ultimatecalibur]

First problem with that. Nothing you actually describes as any real impact on how you tank. All of these refers to how do they do damage.

No, these refer to how they play and both Warrior and Dark Knight use those mechanics to help their survivability. Inner Beast is War stack use that mitigates the damage taken. DA+Souleater and DA+DD both impact how the Dark Knight tanks (though most Dark Knights miss it).

But, most of the time, they're still used in the same way and at the same time. And they don't really matter when you chose which tank you'll want in your party.

Which is intentional and a good thing. Tank selection should be "We have a player who prefers to play Tank A, lets find a player who prefers to play Tank B/C/D and then we will be good to go tankwise."

The "tanking" gameplay could be much more unique between the three tanks.

Bad idea. More unique tanking gameplay methods make games far harder to balance. Please remember that Warrior actually had problems tanking in endgame during 2.0 due to Paladin being the mitigation cooldown tank and Warrior being the self-heal tank. They fixed the problem by giving Warrior mitigation abilities.

Then you'll have people beginning to crunch numbers to determine which "party protection" skill is the best, depending on potency and CD...and then still choosing WAR
As a reminder, they already have a "party protection" skill. For WAR, it's called Storm's Path, and for DRK, it's called Delirium, since party wide AoE are frequently magical.

And Paladin's have Rage of Halone for reducing physical damage done, but Storm's Path, Reprisal and Delirium can not help when the boss becomes untargetable or the damage comes from a source that is not effected by the boss' stats.

Divine Veil, PvE Thrill of War and "Soul Anchor" on the other hand would be very good at helping the party survive post add phase LB attacks.

Not really. The imbalance comes from WAR's main contribution being offensive while the other two are defensive. Let's get real, no one cares what any tank bring on a pure defensive spot, since even the lowest defensive tank needs to be able to main tank anything. So, you have to design three ways of contributing offensively to the party.

Which is exactly what you quoted. Dps tank= offensive Magi/physical tank = defensive. Also Paladin's were getting left out of A1S to A4S progression parties due to the later fights being more magic damage heavy which penalized Paladins.

[ADVSS]

Honestly though how crippled were pld in those fights when they came out in terms of total mitigation over drk?(utilizing SS and DV when no ;darkmind' cd was available?)